Should you do an app? My experiences with Sutro Media

1. There’s an App for That:
Working with Sutro Media
Chris Gray Faust
Chris Around The World
@CAroundTheWorld

2. My App
•Contracted February 2010
•Released April 2010
•iPad version released
December 2010
•Updated May 2011
•250 entries
•800 photos, both from
Creative Commons and self
•Sales: 1,595 at $2.99
•Apple gets 1/3, Sutro takes
1/3, I get 1/3

3. Other Sutro writers
• Company has 330 apps
• Kim Grant: Only 20% are earning what they
should be
• Las Vegas is the best seller – 40-50 a day
(author makes $35 an hour)
• Doug Peebles, SATW photographer, cleared
$10,000 in past 1 ½ years with 7 apps

4. Pros
• Passive income every month
• Easy-to-use templates
• Can repurpose guidebook content
• Establishes you as a subject matter expert for
your destination (interviews, articles)
• Shows that you’re “platform agnostic” with your
content. Pays to be an early adopter and stake
out a claim to your subject matter
• Someone else does the thinking for you
• Community in Sutro Author Guild

5. Cons
• Unpaid time investment
• Marketing on your own
• Updates and reviews (Apple no longer allows
people who get apps with promo codes to leave
reviews).
• New Apple rules mean that non-countrywide
Sutro apps are no longer listed as “stand alones.”
Instead, you’re listed in the master “Sutro World”
app, and people need to download that first.

6. What I’d do differently
• Stay in the city where my app is
• Figure out a way to constantly market. Every
time the apps get a major media mention,
there’s a spike in sales (Charleston sold $100
apps from one mention).
• Figure out an evergreen subject.
Peebles: Beaches don’t change much.
• Grab a sexy subject.
• Create a community.

7. Chris Gray Faust
• Chris Around The World
Travel Publications & Content
• chris@caroundtheworld.com
• www.caroundtheworld.com
• Facebook: ChrisAroundTheWorld
• Twitter: @CAroundTheWorld